


Wandering feet

by ilyena_sylph



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Community: spook_me, Gen, Horror, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuffie just wanted to get away from Wutai for a while.  She hadn't planned on anything like this!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering feet

_They don't need me. Again._

The thought flickered across Yuffie's mind as she walked through Wutai village. 

There was no more Geostigma, no-one that was badly hurt, and her father was healthy again -- well. As healthy as he was going to get -- and didn't need her. 

Her healing materia couldn't help where there was no-one hurt, there were no monsters close to the village to fight -- there had been, but she was so good now that none of them were a challenge to her -- and everywhere she looked, there were just reminders that there was nothing for her to do. 

She wasn't going to just sit and sleep like her father had. Even the thought was awful. She went to her rooms, gathering up a few essentials and two of her shuriken, and headed back out. Her father never really cared where she went, anyway. 

She went to the chocobo stables, picking up the tack for her black as she did. He 'kweh'ed at her, dancing eagerly from foot to foot, and as soon as she had the gate open and was up on his back he was headed out of the village. 

She let him run as soon as they were past the last house, and the sting of the wind he made was a fine excuse for the wetness trickling down her cheeks while she let herself fall into nothing but moving with her mount.

+++ 

She came back to herself as the black turned under her and the sound of water under his talons instead of land registered. She looked around, placing where she was in moments. The black had apparently gotten tired of up-and-down-mountain and was using the river as a highway like the ones in Midgar. She leaned forward, petting his feathered flank, and he made a cheerful 'kweh' back at her.

It was always funny to watch the reactions of people on shore -- or worse, in fishing canoes -- at a black chocobo racing by, and Yuffie tried (and failed) to hold back her smile. She did manage to bite back the laughter, though. She didn't want them to think she was laughing at them.

They left the fishing village behind quickly, and then Yuffie sat back suddenly, trying to slow the black at the sound of a waterfall ahead. He swung his head around, making a curious 'kweh' as he ignored her to keep running.

"Bird," she said, sitting down deeper as she saw the spray, bare feet ahead, "that is a waterfall. Those are deep! Whoa!"

He snorted, flapping the wings behind her, and she swore at him, trying with leg and rein to turn him up out of the river if he wouldn't stop -- but he'd gotten hold of the harness while she was letting him have his own way, and he wasn't having with it now.

He ran between two rocks at the edge of the cliff, and her swearing broke off into a scream -- well, at least no-one was there to hear it! -- as he jumped. NogroundNowaterNo --

Behind her, his wings beat hard, and suddenly they weren't falling. They were.. gliding?

"What the -- you aren't a gold!" she yelled at him, spray off the waterfall drenching her as they dropped the distance from the top of the waterfall down, down... and onto its pool below.

Her hands were shaking. She was shaking, and she determinedly sat down hard and yanked back on the reins --

The stupid bird stopped.

He 'kweh'ed again as he turned his head back towards her, his bill half gaped open. "Oooh, you think this is funny!" she snapped at him, "You nearly scared a year off my life, bird!"

"Kwehkweh?" His beak dropped towards the pocket of her shorts that held the Greens, and she tapped the side of her fist into his beak.

"Not a chance! Not after that! Oh, get off the water," she said, urging him up onto the bank. He went, amiably enough, and she let herself just fall off his back, rolling when she hit the ground. Ground. Nice flat solid ground.

She was just going to lay here on it a while.

The drag of a rein over her skin was the only warning she had before the black had pick-pocketed her shorts, contentedly munching on a Green. She glared up, then slowly pulled herself up to her feet, looking around. She knew the Wutai landscape as well as anyone still alive, but she was fairly sure she'd never seen this particular view before. Her eyes flicked across it, up and down the rocks of the cliff-face and down the spill of the waterfall, and _What is that?_

She took a couple of steps, bringing one hand up to shade her eyes... and there was a cave there, half-behind the waterfall. Years of searching for materia had her moving before she really knew it, leaving the black behind with his Greens. "Stay, you!" she called backwards. The 'kweh' sounded agreeable.

It took a lot of her skill to make it up to the entrance of the cave, given how slick the rocks were, but she wasn't the best student of Wutai's masters in a generation to be beaten by a pile of rocks! "Ha!" she cheered as she pushed herself up into the opening of the cave. She fished a flashlight out of her boot, slim little thing she'd gotten from Tifa, and aimed it at the floor as she headed in.

She wasn't any more than inside the full dark of the cave when she realized she didn't need the light. Not with the blue-green shimmering light, the scent of cinnamon on the air, what --

"A Lifestream spring!"

She couldn't call them just 'mako' springs anymore. Not after seeing what the Lifestream could do when roused. She shuddered, rubbing at her arms with her free hand and the side of her fist, trying to ward off the chill of the memory.

It gleamed bright enough to shed light, and Yuffie turned the flashlight back off. Something about using one so close to the Lifestream just felt wrong.

She stayed back from it, too. She didn't want to touch it -- she wasn't **that** crazy. It was dangerous like that.

She was going to have to watch on her way back so that she could warn the villagers and her father. A Lifestream spring could mean monsters later, if it affected the native animals, and some of those were dangerous enough all on their own! 

Where there were Lifestream springs, though... there might be materia! 

She bounced on her toes, looking around, and started to investigate around the spring. Natural materia was stronger than manufactured, and even though the Planet was trying to heal and they shouldn't abuse materia, she liked helping individual materia grow. 

Besides. It couldn't hurt to just look, right? 

She'd worked almost the entire way around the spring before she saw it. 

Gleaming-green, rich and deep, half-embedded in the wall of the cave, down low... Magic. 

It was small, but already perfectly round, and she reached for it, tugging and tapping carefully at the soft rock around it with the butt of the flashlight until she could get it free. She couldn't tell, not by touch, not in this light, what kind it was. She had one prize, were there any more? 

She kept looking, daring to go closer to the spring -- not close enough to be splashed by the trickle that kept welling up and sinking back into the rock, a few feet away -- but no. There weren't any other pieces. A couple of shards that might be, eventually, but not until she was dead for a few centuries. 

That thought made her shudder again, and she headed back out of the cave. She tucked the materia between her breasts, inside her bra where it wouldn't move, and scrambled back down the rocks to her black. 

She lifted the materia to the sun, examining it... but still, she couldn't tell. It didn't feel warm like a Fire materia, or raise the hair on her wrists like Bolt, or brush the cool of Ice over her. It didn't feel like holding Earth, either. It certainly didn't have the feel of any of the curative materia, she was used to those by now!

"Guess I'll just have to equip you, huh? Find out what you are that way?" she said to it, and her black lifted his head from the grass he was chewing to 'kweh' at her again. "Wasn't talking to you, bird." 

She had a simple little bangle, just two slots -- she wasn't putting an unknown materia into Razor Ring -- and she slid the materia into one. She thought she heard something, just for a moment, a whisper or maybe a howl, but when she looked around, there was nothing but her and the black. 

It was more the shade of offensive magic than defensive, so she didn't try to activate it, not yet. She'd find out what it was the next time they ran into a monster. 

She still wasn't going back. She had basic supplies, and gil in her boots. That would be enough.

"Okay, bird. Let's go -- but no more waterfalls!" 

"Kweh!"

+++ 

Half an hour later, Yuffie was wishing she'd just equipped it into Razor Ring, as she and the black attempted to outrun a pack of those stupid poisoning bugs! She'd been studying the materia, trying to discern what its secret was, instead of paying attention, and the black hadn't smelled them. She twisted in the saddle, flinging her shuriken backwards. It hit one and spun back to her hand -- but the wounded bug just kept chasing them. 

Oh, what she'd do for Water materia right now! _Stupid Cloud and saying no fighting materia! We still have monsters!_ How she wished she could fling the thought hard enough to hit him right in his spiky hair!

The materia on her wrist glowed as though she'd activated it with her thought, and she felt power flash through her veins like she'd just won a Champion's Belt. She flexed her hand on her shuriken and threw again -- and that was the fastest she'd ever seen Razor Ring fly! 

It cut through a wing-joint of the already damaged bug and the bug fell to the ground, scant moments before her shuriken slapped back into her hand. It stung, but it hadn't cut her, and Yuffie wasn't about to waste the opportunity. She threw again, aiming for the second bug, and it shrieked as it fell. 

They were normally tougher than that... 

She'd never heard of a materia that made you stronger, but no-one knew everything about materia, and it was sure coming in handy now! 

The third and fourth bugs stopped chasing them, circling between the fallen ones, and she sat back, telling the black it was okay to slow down. At least until they ran into something else. 

+++ 

By the time they reached the mine on Wutai's far eastern shore, she had Phoenix Down stashed in every pocket she had and her bag, a half-dozen other scavenged items, a headache threatening to send her unconscious, and she was starving. 

Three of the Phoenix Downs went to the tiny apothecary in the town around the mine to get an Ether for the headache and exhaustion. She'd tapped the materia over and over again, using its burst of strength and speed to beat away or kill the monsters that had kept coming after her. It was growing in its slot, quicker than most she'd seen, and she wondered what its next ability would be. 

The Ether helped ease the headache, the decent meal she bargained for helped more, and she collapsed willingly onto the couch of the widow-woman that had fed her, wanting nothing more than sleep. 

+++ 

Her dreams were full of strangeness, running and hunting, and she woke up hungry. The bangle on her arm still held its materia, and she brushed her fingers over it, quick and light, while she dressed again. 

Once she was up, she hauled in water for Koharu, bucket by bucket to the tank in the attic and the boiler over the stove alike -- cursing under her breath at Shinra the entire time -- while the older woman cooked breakfast for them both. 

She ate like she'd been fighting all night, and still Koharu refused her apologies, or even to let her wash up. 

The black shied away from her until she held out a palmful of grass for him, and once he was tacked, she looked around for what might have him nervous. 

There were some prints she didn't recognize in the dirt near the corral, some kind of big dog, and she clucked at him for being so much like a chicken instead of a chocobo as she swung up onto his back. 

Out in the mining town, she found a boy with a boat just large enough to carry her and the black across to the Nibel coast for a few gil. She hated every minute of the trip, and spent it leaning over the rail or with her head buried in the black's neck feathers, her arms around his keel. 

She stumbled off the boat, pushing one hand down into the sand to get her stomach settled faster. The black chewed on the hair at the back of her neck while she knelt there, making quiet 'kweh' noises against her skin, until she got herself back together. She got back up on the black and headed off the coast, up into the Nibel mountains. 

+++

She'd forgotten how infested the Nibel mountains could be... but she had the added strength from the materia, and her black, and Razor Ring. She traded scavenged items for a tent, a haversack, and an infant Fire materia in a nameless logging camp the second day, and let herself just get lost in the mountains. 

With each fight, the materia in her bangle grew... 

... and every night, she dreamed of running, of stretching long limbs and bounding down trails. 

She was getting really tired of waking up starving, but game was plentiful along with the monsters, and thankfully she liked roasted bird. 

The fourth day, her materia took on the brighter shine that meant it had a new ability now, and she bounced on her toes, eager to see what it was, before she even went to raid the body of the fallen Nibel wolf. 

The black shied away from her when she went to climb back up, and she snorted at him, digging Greens out of the haversack for him. "What's wrong, bird? Do I smell like wolf? It's okay, it's dead..." 

His 'kweh' was sharp and edged -- almost a wild's 'wark!' -- his eyes rolling at her, but the Greens and her voice eventually brought him to hand, and once she was on his back, he seemed fine. 

What on the Planet was _wrong_ with him lately?

+++ 

"Shit!" 

The curse burst off her lips as she rolled off the black's back and slapped his side, "Go!" 

He ran, heading up the side of the canyon, while Yuffie grabbed Razor Ring and prayed for her Fire materia to level up -- no, they absorbed Fire, she couldn't use it! -- damn, damn! There was a damned _dragon_ in this canyon, and it had seen them! 

Weren't they all supposed to be dead? 

She tapped the materia, feeling the surge of strength through her, and activated Fire as she threw the shuriken. It cut into the dragon's side, and the beast roared, its foul-looking head turning towards her. 

The materia's original strength enhancement wasn't going to be enough, and Yuffie swallowed once before she tapped it again. Energy surged through her, powerful, and her senses sharpened, aggression and anger pounding through her, and she heard herself shriek a challenge at the dragon. 

It spat fire, and she frantically leapt out of the way -- it felt like she had Haste on, the fire seeming to slow to a crawl -- and she got out of its path easily. Maybe she could handle this? 

A dragon, all on her own, oh, she'd be so famous! She'd prove she really was the best in the world!

Lost in the fight and the anger/exhilaration, she never noticed the faint striping on her arms and legs, or the change in her hands that sharpened her fingernails into the start of claws. 

+++ 

Splattered with dragon blood and bits of bone, trying not to choke on the smell of dead dragon and burned earth, rock, and trees, Yuffie collapsed against the nearest standing rock, panting. 

She never, ever, wanted to do that again. 

The dragon had a hoard somewhere. Every monster did. She just had to find it. 

There might be Ethers there. 

She just had to find it. 

Soon. Just as soon as she got some sleep. 

She slid down the rock to the ground, curling up in a ball at its foot. 

+++

She didn't wake up hungry -- but she also didn't wake up where she'd been! 

She sat up, looking around frantically. 

Still in the canyon. There was the dragon's carcass, already drawing Zuu and Nibel wolves along with smaller scavengers, but she was feet away from the rock she'd fallen asleep against... 

... and there was blood on her hands. Under her nails, and -- 

and in her mouth. She could taste it, cloying and thick and coppery. She grabbed for the canteen that should be on her belt and gulped down water, stopping after the third drink to gargle with it and spit.

Blood in her mouth, and she couldn't remember why. 

She didn't even remember dreaming. 

She lifted the canteen again, and stared in shock and horror at the stripes on her arms. Orange and black, some edged with white...

They looked like mountain-cat stripes. The big ones that lived in the heavy forests of the mid-mountains. 

She rubbed at them, trying to make them go away... and eventually they did fade away. Or was it that they faded into her skin? She couldn't tell. 

Suddenly, desperately, she wanted Vincent. 

If anyone could understand the terror of becoming something else, of not knowing what you'd done, he would. 

Finding him could take months, though... and she wasn't sure she had them. 

Was it the materia?

Maybe she could stop this if she un-equipped the materia. She reached down and popped it out of the bangle, sliding it into a pocket instead. That might give her time. 

"Okay Yuffie. Just find the black, get up to Cosmo Canyon, and borrow their phone. If you call enough times, surely he'll answer..." 

_Or he'll just throw it away... No, he's not that much of a jerk!_

She whistled for the black, heading the direction she'd seen him go. The dragon's hoard could wait. She needed answers more than anything that might be in the cave. 

The jingle of harness hit her ears and she saw the black trotting towards her. It stopped a few feet away, making that sharp 'kweh' she didn't like hearing, and she crooned at him, digging out the last scrap of Greens in her pocket, and eventually he came to her hand, though he sidled and almost hissed at her before she got onto his back. 

+++

She tried to avoid the monsters on her way to Cosmo Canyon, she really did. The black ran for her, but the Thunderbirds must have had a nest on the path. They didn't want to leave her alone, even when she started sending Razor Ring up at them with second-level Fire going. 

It seemed like her throws didn't have any strength, that her weapon wasn't really doing any damage, and she didn't really know why... until the lack made her angry, and the materia against her thigh pulsed. 

_It's not even equipped!_ flashed through her mind as the black went crazy underneath of her, doing everything it possibly could to throw her off.

She landed on her feet, yards away from him, and anger at that pulsed through her mind in the moment before a diving Thunderbird made her duck, roll across the ground and come back to her feet just in time to catch Razor Ring and throw it again. It hit harder, slicing across one's keelbone, and she whooped with satisfaction. 

More strength and energy poured into her, her senses sharpened, and the world slowed down as she threw her weapon again. This time, she took off a wing, and the Thunderbird screamed as it fell. She raced towards it, on instinct, and it wasn't...

..it wasn't her shuriken that struck the final blow, but her own, taloned hands. 

Its mate dove at her, screaming, and it avoided her throw. It threw Lightning at her, she dodged out of the way, and it followed. Talons raked along her ribs and her talons sank deep into its chest. 

Everything disappeared into a haze of pain and fury and ripping muscle and feathers, until the bird was dead under her. 

It smelled wonderful, hot and fresh, and she tore several bites off the breast before she knew what she was doing. 

She stumbled away from the carcass, gagging... and that was when she realized she was a bit lower to the ground than she was used to. Lower, and.. on her hands and feet? That should be awkward, painful, but it wasn't. She looked down at her hands, and the canyon walls echoed with a shriek of fear a bare moment later. 

Not hands. Paws. Big, heavy, orange and white paws, like the stripes. Heavy claws that flexed in and out of claw-sheaths with her fear. Something hit her side and she jumped, turning her head -- a tail? 

She had a tail?

 _What in Leviathan's --_

The plaintive mrowl she heard broke off her thoughts, the words she'd been trying to say, and that frightened her even more. If she couldn't even talk, how could anyone help her?!

 _Nanaki, maybe?_

That was a hopeful thought. Nanaki might be able to understand her, and he lived in Cosmo Canyon. So did some of the mystics. Good thing she was already going there, then. 

She got her bearings, looking up at the sun, and started to walk. 

+++

She was tired. 

She'd been walking for what felt like hours, she still had paws and a tail, and it was hot. She wanted water, and somewhere safe to sleep. She sniffed at the air, hopeful, and there was a faint wet smell. 

She followed that, tired and sore-pawed, until she found a spring, and she shoved her head into the water, halfway to her eyes, and drank until she couldn't drink any more. 

Now she needed somewhere to sleep. 

She wanted her tent and a fire and the black to listen to in the night. She had none of them. Maybe a tree? 

She went towards the nearest, biggest tree and started to climb -- and within a few feet, it creaked dangerously and started to dip towards the ground. She jumped off, yowling her upset and anger, and stalked away to find somewhere else. 

'Somewhere else' turned out to be a 'cave' under a fallen tree, close to the massive roots, that was big enough for her to get into and curl up in.

+++

Waking up this time meant hitting her head on the bottom of the tree -- and her entirely human shriek of pain was the sweetest noise Yuffie thought she'd heard in years. 

Human, she was human! 

...and naked other than the bangle, with dirt and leaf-mulch sticking to her from shoulder to toes! No, it was even in her hair!

She wriggled out of the 'cave' she'd found, trying to brush off all of the dirt and mulch. That didn't really work. 

"Yuck, just _yuck!_ " she told the air, at volume, and started to run back to the spring she'd drunk at last night. 

Several minutes later she was freezing and wet, but at least she was clean. 

"Now what'm I supposed to do?!" she demanded of the air. "I don't have my weapons, or my other materia, any of my stuff, or my ride! It'll take weeks to get to Cosmo Canyon on foot! And even if I do, I'm not showing up in front of all of those people naked!" 

All her talking aloud did, though, was startle a bird out of the trees and echo off the rocks. It didn't magically give her any answers. 

"...maybe if I go back the way I came, I can find the black? Or he'll find me?" 

That sounded about as good as anything else. Besides, she wasn't leaving her weapons behind to get trashed. 

Looking from the rough animal-trail she'd followed to the water to her bare feet made her wince. This was going to hurt, a lot, before she made it back to where she might be able to catch her chocobo, or at the very least find her weapons. 

Her hand slid on the bangle, trying to convince herself to leave the entire thing behind --

\-- but what if something attacked her? 

What if --

No, she would go into a complete panic if she thought about what-ifs. She just wasn't going to leave the only defense she had behind.

+++

_Three Weeks Later_

Rumors of a strange cat in the mountains between Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon brought Nanaki away from the canyon itself, out into the wilderness. He deeply doubted that there was any natural cat he couldn't handle, and if it were more than that... well. 

He had both his PHS and a mastered Restore in an earring. He'd be fine. 

Several minor incidents later, Nanaki had found several dens, some few tracks, those a huge cat indeed, paws the size of his -- 

\-- and human footprints. 

Bare feet, small and leaving traces of blood. 

Blood he knew, scent he knew lingering faintly in the prints. 

"YUFFIE!!!!!!!!!!!" 

His scream bounced off the rocks, echoing "iee" back at him over and over again.

She didn't answer. 

"YUFFIE!!!!!!!!" 

What on the Planet would she be doing out here? 

A cat's scream hit his ears, and Nanaki ran towards it. Right down the trail Yuffie's prints left for him. A growl built in his throat, low and angry, at that. 

If that cat had hunted his friend... 

He almost slipped in the blood from a dead and half-eaten Zuu, and he couldn't smell Yuffie anymore. He snarled, wordless -- 

\-- and the cat screamed back. Not far away. 

He burst into a clearing, skidding a foot or two at the sight of a massive cat, taller at the shoulder than he was and heavier, and a roar burst out of his chest, covering his surprise. That was nothing native to his home! 

His roar hadn't startled it.

He growled, flexing his claws against the ground, ready to leap...

...and the cat dropped to the ground, stretching flat along it and rolling belly-up, a pleading noise in its throat. 

He stared, baffled, and the cat mewled again. 

It... was it -- no, she, defined nipples and no penis -- staring back at him?

"What on..." 

The cat rolled and he tensed, but she was only sitting up. Sitting up and looking at him with brown -- almost black, that was not natural -- eyes, another mewl in her throat as she dropped her head. 

Dropped her head to yank at something on her right foreleg with her teeth.

Something that shone in the light, and clicked like metal against her teeth, and gleamed with the deep green of a mastered materia, another slot holding one that had the weaker gleam of a first-level. _Budded off?_

A Titan bangle? 

"Yuffie?" he asked, incredulous, and the cat's head snapped up, nodding frantically. 

"Well. _Hell_. ...okay, Yuffie. We'll figure this out," he said, soft and reassuring, and she bounced to her feet, bounding over to him to rub her side against his. "Ugh. You smell like Zuu blood." 

Her claws were sharp, and he nipped behind her shoulder reprovingly. She whined, but she pushed closer against his side. 

He purred at her, nudging at her until she laid down, and he started washing the Zuu blood off of her face and paws. She must have been eating messy as a cub, to have blood everywhere like this. 

She started to purr after a little bit, soft and ragged, and she dropped lower against the ground, going boneless with relief. That made him purr a little louder, and he shifted from licking the blood away to washing her ears. 

He would get her calmed down, settled, and then see if he could get someone to come get them. They would figure out how to fix whatever have happened to her, they _would_. But first, she needed rest.

+++

Hours -- almost the next day -- later, Yuffie was curled up in the corner of Tifa's couch in Edge. 

She almost couldn't believe she was really there. 

Falling asleep with Nanaki had triggered the change back to human. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or not, because it had meant she had to be human for the ridge across the continent and ocean to Edge. 

But she _was_ here now, with Cid and Nanaki and Tifa. Even Cloud had shown up. Barret was on the other side of the continent, from what Marlene said. 

They were all sitting around, close, and Yuffie realized with a start that they were waiting for her to talk. 

She stretched out a foot, poking a toe at the bangle with its two materia. "I found that in a cave on Wutai," she said, hearing how rough with disuse her voice still was. "It was just a first-level. I put it in the bangle because I didn't want it in my shuriken without knowing what it was." 

Cloud nodded at that, and she smiled a little. "I wound up tapping it because of some Razor Weeds, and it... it made me stronger, made me do more damage. I thought that was all it was." 

"But it wasn't?" That was Tifa, soft and gentle. 

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It wasn't. I started having dreams about running, hunting... one night I found weird tracks outside the chocobo corral where I was staying. I thought they were just some big dog -- pretty dumb, yeah?" 

"Well, girl, what el -- YOW!" 

She smiled at Nanaki. "Thank you." 

"You're welcome," he said, licking his paw lightly as Cid rubbed at his thigh lightly and then lit another -- reeking -- cigarette. 

"Anyway. We got across to the Nibelheim area -- me and the black, I hope he's okay -- and the materia levelled up at the end of a fight. I want some different materia, Cloud. Travelling alone is dangerous. Getting rid of Shinra didn't get rid of the monsters!"

"Okay, Yuffie, okay." 

" _Good_. Also, there was a dragon in a river canyon on the way to Nibelheim. It's dead now, anyone want to help me go find the hoard? But... that was really scary, the new abilities I got from the second-level. I sent the black away. But I was faster, I could hear, smell, taste, see better -- nice for fighting a dragon alone, but scary. 

"I fell asleep, right after.... and I woke up in a different place. I had blood in my mouth, and on my hands, and I didn't remember anything!" 

Tifa was there so quick that Yuffie jumped, flattening herself against the back of the couch for a moment before she leaned into the hug instead. Tifa's fingers slid through her hair, gentle, and she said softly, "Oh, Yuffie. I'm so glad you're okay." 

"Me, too," she agreed into Tifa's shoulder, shuddering a little. Tifa smelled like sawdust and cooking oil, like sweat and alcohol... like the Seventh Heaven under their feet. It was a good smell, familiar. "I had stripes on my arms when I looked down. That really scared me, and I took the materia out of the bangle.

"I thought I'd be okay then. It wasn't on me. I'd just avoid all the fights... but a pair of Thunderbirds found us. They didn't want to go away, and the materia activated and levelled up again. The black threw me, and... I don't remember a lot after that. Just fighting the Thunderbirds, and... eating part of one. Having paws. And a tail. It... I couldn't move like me, or do anything but just try and get to you," she looked up from Tifa's shoulder to Nanaki then. 

"Wait a sec. I thought you said you took it off?" That was Cloud.

"I did! It was in my pocket and not in the bangle and it activated!"

She could feel all the eyes on her, and she looked around. All of them looked as horrified as she still felt. A materia activating without being equipped... that was every materia-user's worst nightmare. 

Well, it had been hers, anyway, until she was never sure if she was going to wake up as a human or a mountain-cat. That was worse, now.

"It... _Bahamut's balls_ , girl!" 

She started laughing helplessly at Cid's profanity -- it just seemed to sum things up beautifully, and she nodded. "Yes. That. That exactly. It... I went to find water, and somewhere to sleep. When I woke up, I still had the bangle -- I don't know how -- and the materia. That was all I had. I started walking, trying to get to the Canyon, but any time I got angry, or scared, or fell asleep... I changed again." 

"Why not just take it off?" Cloud asked, but... there wasn't scorn in his eyes. Just confusion. 

"...It was all I had, Cloud. It did make me stronger, faster. Maybe it was stupid, but I -- "

"I would have kept it," Tifa said, hugging her a little closer. "Alone, with nothing? No. I get it." 

Yuffie blinked, twisting around to look at her. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Tifa nodded, pushing the hair out of Yuffie's eyes for her. "I do." 

That... Yuffie buried her face into Tifa's strong, broad shoulder again, taking quick breaths. It all blurred together in her head, all but what she'd needed to do. "I kept trying to get south to the canyon, when I -- when I was human. Human enough to know what I was doing, but I'd get lost in the canyons, and the cat just wanted food and sleep, and I -- " 

Her voice was shaking. 

She had to look like a child, some little girl hiding in Tifa's shoulder, and she couldn't make herself let go enough to stop. "It -- three weeks? 

"Felt like forever. Then I heard Nanaki yelling for me. I tried to yell back, but -- " 

She heard the faint rustle of Nanaki sitting up, of the jewelry in his mane and ear shifting against his fur. "All I heard was a cat," he said for her, and she nodded. "I-- well. I am glad Yuffie is smart enough not to try to fight me." 

"I could as a human!" she said at Tifa's shoulder, sharp, and she heard Nanaki laugh. "Yes, but you weren't. After that... the rest of you know. Cid came to fetch us, and we came here." 

"Yes," Tifa said, still petting her hair. "And you're safe now, Yuffie. You don't need that piece any more." 

"No. I don't," Yuffie agreed wholeheartedly, still breathing Tifa's scents, listening to the rest of the room. After a little bit, she could sit up, and she glared at the bangle. "Someone please take it and drop it in the deepest part of the oceans? I don't want it to get anyone else -- and I am **not** getting back on that stupid ship of yours, old man!" 

"As though I'd want you to! You sick up all over my decks!" Cid retorted. "But yeah, we can do that, girl. Not a problem." 

"Good. Thank you, old man." 

+++

Cloud took her back to the Nibelheim-Cosmo Canyon corridor on his gold chocobo -- or one of his? She wasn't sure any more -- to look for her weapons and the black... and the dragon's hoard, while they were at it. Razor Ring was easiest to find, and they were still looking for the hoard when the black came running to Cloud in the ragged remnants of his harness. 

He stomped and stamped at her, but he did, eventually, let her strip the tack off and put new on, and mount. With two chocobos, looking for the dragon's hoard was a lot faster. Eventually they did find it, and the _Highwind_ came back just in time to pick up the hoard -- and her black -- while Cloud took her the rest of the way back to Wutai. 

After a minute to talk to the head of her father's kitchen, she invited them to stay for a late meal. It was nice to have company that was _hers_ for once, friends that she liked and trusted. She hugged them all goodbye, checked on the hoard -- almost all hers, since she'd killed the thing. Cloud got part, for finding her, and she hadn't even minded (much) that Cid wanted part of it for hauling it for her. 

"All done," he'd said against her ear, smoky breath almost making her cough, and that was a wash of relief. 

She got to bed after that last check, and it was such a luxury to stretch out on her own futon, her own headrest and blankets, and sleep. She was safe at home, at last, with that thing deep under the sea...

...so why did she dream about running free again?

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the shapeshifters option for Spook_Me 2013.
> 
> The prompt was [this image](https://tinyurl.com/lbjj93z).


End file.
